Quote

Habit is necessary. It is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive ... one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in the big things, and happy in small ways.

Edith Wharton

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Edith Wharton
Age: 75 †
Born: 1862
Born: January 24
Died: 1937
Died: August 11
Novelist
Poet
Prosaist
Translator
Writer
New York City
New York
Edith Newbold Jones
Edith Newbold Jones Wharton
Things
Small
Curiosity
Insatiable
Happy
Remain
Trail
Bigs
Necessary
Trails
Past
Intellectual
Fought
Change
Habit
Date
Disintegration
Must
Interested
Habits
Ruts
Long
Ways
Usual
Unafraid
Way
Alive
Turning
Incessantly

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The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.
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traditions that have lost their meaning are the hardest of all to destroy.
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In every heart there should be one grief that is like a well in the desert.
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True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision. That new, that personal, vision is attained only by looking long enough at the object represented to make it the writer's own and the mind which would bring this secret gem to fruition must be able to nourish it with an accumulated wealth of knowledge and experience.
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Life's just a perpetual piecing together of broken bits.
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And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow.
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Then stay with me a little longer,' Madame Olenska said in a low tone, just touching his knee with her plumed fan. It was the lightest touch, but it thrilled him like a caress.
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I discovered early that crying makes my nose red, and the knowledge has helped me through several painful episodes.
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She had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her own making.
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He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime.
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Her failure was a useful preliminary to success.
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